The Republic: Book VIII, Part 2

In the first place, are they not free; and is not the city full of freedom
and frankness--a man may say and do what he likes?

'Tis said so, he replied.

And where freedom is, the individual is clearly able to order for himself
his own life as he pleases?

Clearly.

Then in this kind of State there will be the greatest variety of human
natures?

There will.

This, then, seems likely to be the fairest of States, being like an
embroidered robe which is spangled with every sort of flower. And just as
women and children think a variety of colours to be of all things most
charming, so there are many men to whom this State, which is spangled with
the manners and characters of mankind, will appear to be the fairest of
States.

Yes.

Yes, my good Sir, and there will be no better in which to look for a
government.

Why?

Because of the liberty which reigns there--they have a complete assortment
of constitutions; and he who has a mind to establish a State, as we have
been doing, must go to a democracy as he would to a bazaar at which they
sell them, and pick out the one that suits him; then, when he has made his
choice, he may found his State.

He will be sure to have patterns enough.

And there being no necessity, I said, for you to govern in this State, even
if you have the capacity, or to be governed, unless you like, or go to war
when the rest go to war, or to be at peace when others are at peace, unless
you are so disposed--there being no necessity also, because some law
forbids you to hold office or be a dicast, that you should not hold office
or be a dicast, if you have a fancy--is not this a way of life which for
the moment is supremely delightful?

For the moment, yes.

And is not their humanity to the condemned in some cases quite charming?
Have you not observed how, in a democracy, many persons, although they have
been sentenced to death or exile, just stay where they are and walk about
the world--the gentleman parades like a hero, and nobody sees or cares?

Yes, he replied, many and many a one.

See too, I said, the forgiving spirit of democracy, and the 'don't care'
about trifles, and the disregard which she shows of all the fine principles
which we solemnly laid down at the foundation of the city--as when we said
that, except in the case of some rarely gifted nature, there never will be
a good man who has not from his childhood been used to play amid things of
beauty and make of them a joy and a study--how grandly does she trample all
these fine notions of ours under her feet, never giving a thought to the
pursuits which make a statesman, and promoting to honour any one who
professes to be the people's friend.

Yes, she is of a noble spirit.

These and other kindred characteristics are proper to democracy, which is a
charming form of government, full of variety and disorder, and dispensing a
sort of equality to equals and unequals alike.

We know her well.

Consider now, I said, what manner of man the individual is, or rather
consider, as in the case of the State, how he comes into being.

Very good, he said.

Is not this the way--he is the son of the miserly and oligarchical father
who has trained him in his own habits?

Exactly.

And, like his father, he keeps under by force the pleasures which are of
the spending and not of the getting sort, being those which are called
unnecessary?

Obviously.

Would you like, for the sake of clearness, to distinguish which are the
necessary and which are the unnecessary pleasures?

I should.

Are not necessary pleasures those of which we cannot get rid, and of which
the satisfaction is a benefit to us? And they are rightly called so,
because we are framed by nature to desire both what is beneficial and what
is necessary, and cannot help it.

True.

We are not wrong therefore in calling them necessary?

We are not.

And the desires of which a man may get rid, if he takes pains from his
youth upwards--of which the presence, moreover, does no good, and in some
cases the reverse of good--shall we not be right in saying that all these
are unnecessary?

Yes, certainly.

Suppose we select an example of either kind, in order that we may have a
general notion of them?

Very good.

Will not the desire of eating, that is, of simple food and condiments, in
so far as they are required for health and strength, be of the necessary
class?

That is what I should suppose.

The pleasure of eating is necessary in two ways; it does us good and it is
essential to the continuance of life?

Yes.

But the condiments are only necessary in so far as they are good for
health?

Certainly.

And the desire which goes beyond this, of more delicate food, or other
luxuries, which might generally be got rid of, if controlled and trained in
youth, and is hurtful to the body, and hurtful to the soul in the pursuit
of wisdom and virtue, may be rightly called unnecessary?

Very true.

May we not say that these desires spend, and that the others make money
because they conduce to production?

Certainly.

And of the pleasures of love, and all other pleasures, the same holds good?

True.

And the drone of whom we spoke was he who was surfeited in pleasures and
desires of this sort, and was the slave of the unnecessary desires, whereas
he who was subject to the necessary only was miserly and oligarchical?

Very true.

Again, let us see how the democratical man grows out of the oligarchical:
the following, as I suspect, is commonly the process.

What is the process?

When a young man who has been brought up as we were just now describing, in
a vulgar and miserly way, has tasted drones' honey and has come to
associate with fierce and crafty natures who are able to provide for him
all sorts of refinements and varieties of pleasure--then, as you may
imagine, the change will begin of the oligarchical principle within him
into the democratical?

Inevitably.

And as in the city like was helping like, and the change was effected by an
alliance from without assisting one division of the citizens, so too the
young man is changed by a class of desires coming from without to assist
the desires within him, that which is akin and alike again helping that
which is akin and alike?

Certainly.

And if there be any ally which aids the oligarchical principle within him,
whether the influence of a father or of kindred, advising or rebuking him,
then there arises in his soul a faction and an opposite faction, and he
goes to war with himself.

It must be so.

And there are times when the democratical principle gives way to the
oligarchical, and some of his desires die, and others are banished; a
spirit of reverence enters into the young man's soul and order is restored.

Yes, he said, that sometimes happens.

And then, again, after the old desires have been driven out, fresh ones
spring up, which are akin to them, and because he their father does not
know how to educate them, wax fierce and numerous.

Yes, he said, that is apt to be the way.

They draw him to his old associates, and holding secret intercourse with
them, breed and multiply in him.

Very true.

At length they seize upon the citadel of the young man's soul, which they
perceive to be void of all accomplishments and fair pursuits and true
words, which make their abode in the minds of men who are dear to the gods,
and are their best guardians and sentinels.

None better.

False and boastful conceits and phrases mount upwards and take their place.

They are certain to do so.

And so the young man returns into the country of the lotus-eaters, and
takes up his dwelling there in the face of all men; and if any help be sent
by his friends to the oligarchical part of him, the aforesaid vain conceits
shut the gate of the king's fastness; and they will neither allow the
embassy itself to enter, nor if private advisers offer the fatherly counsel
of the aged will they listen to them or receive them. There is a battle
and they gain the day, and then modesty, which they call silliness, is
ignominiously thrust into exile by them, and temperance, which they
nickname unmanliness, is trampled in the mire and cast forth; they persuade
men that moderation and orderly expenditure are vulgarity and meanness, and
so, by the help of a rabble of evil appetites, they drive them beyond the
border.

Yes, with a will.

And when they have emptied and swept clean the soul of him who is now in
their power and who is being initiated by them in great mysteries, the next
thing is to bring back to their house insolence and anarchy and waste and
impudence in bright array having garlands on their heads, and a great
company with them, hymning their praises and calling them by sweet names;
insolence they term breeding, and anarchy liberty, and waste magnificence,
and impudence courage. And so the young man passes out of his original
nature, which was trained in the school of necessity, into the freedom and
libertinism of useless and unnecessary pleasures.

Yes, he said, the change in him is visible enough.

After this he lives on, spending his money and labour and time on
unnecessary pleasures quite as much as on necessary ones; but if he be
fortunate, and is not too much disordered in his wits, when years have
elapsed, and the heyday of passion is over--supposing that he then
re-admits into the city some part of the exiled virtues, and does not
wholly give himself up to their successors--in that case he balances his
pleasures and lives in a sort of equilibrium, putting the government of
himself into the hands of the one which comes first and wins the turn; and
when he has had enough of that, then into the hands of another; he despises
none of them but encourages them all equally.

Very true, he said.

Neither does he receive or let pass into the fortress any true word of
advice; if any one says to him that some pleasures are the satisfactions of
good and noble desires, and others of evil desires, and that he ought to
use and honour some and chastise and master the others--whenever this is
repeated to him he shakes his head and says that they are all alike, and
that one is as good as another.

Yes, he said; that is the way with him.

Yes, I said, he lives from day to day indulging the appetite of the hour;
and sometimes he is lapped in drink and strains of the flute; then he
becomes a water-drinker, and tries to get thin; then he takes a turn at
gymnastics; sometimes idling and neglecting everything, then once more
living the life of a philosopher; often he is busy with politics, and
starts to his feet and says and does whatever comes into his head; and, if
he is emulous of any one who is a warrior, off he is in that direction, or
of men of business, once more in that. His life has neither law nor order;
and this distracted existence he terms joy and bliss and freedom; and so he
goes on.

Yes, he replied, he is all liberty and equality.

Yes, I said; his life is motley and manifold and an epitome of the lives of
many;--he answers to the State which we described as fair and spangled.
And many a man and many a woman will take him for their pattern, and many a
constitution and many an example of manners is contained in him.

Just so.

Let him then be set over against democracy; he may truly be called the
democratic man.

Let that be his place, he said.

Last of all comes the most beautiful of all, man and State alike, tyranny
and the tyrant; these we have now to consider.

Quite true, he said.

Say then, my friend, In what manner does tyranny arise?--that it has a
democratic origin is evident.

Clearly.

And does not tyranny spring from democracy in the same manner as democracy
from oligarchy--I mean, after a sort?

How?

The good which oligarchy proposed to itself and the means by which it was
maintained was excess of wealth--am I not right?

Yes.

And the insatiable desire of wealth and the neglect of all other things for
the sake of money-getting was also the ruin of oligarchy?

True.

And democracy has her own good, of which the insatiable desire brings her
to dissolution?

What good?

Freedom, I replied; which, as they tell you in a democracy, is the glory of
the State--and that therefore in a democracy alone will the freeman of
nature deign to dwell.

Yes; the saying is in every body's mouth.

I was going to observe, that the insatiable desire of this and the neglect
of other things introduces the change in democracy, which occasions a
demand for tyranny.

How so?

When a democracy which is thirsting for freedom has evil cup-bearers
presiding over the feast, and has drunk too deeply of the strong wine of
freedom, then, unless her rulers are very amenable and give a plentiful
draught, she calls them to account and punishes them, and says that they
are cursed oligarchs.

Yes, he replied, a very common occurrence.

Yes, I said; and loyal citizens are insultingly termed by her slaves who
hug their chains and men of naught; she would have subjects who are like
rulers, and rulers who are like subjects: these are men after her own
heart, whom she praises and honours both in private and public. Now, in
such a State, can liberty have any limit?

Certainly not.

By degrees the anarchy finds a way into private houses, and ends by getting
among the animals and infecting them.

How do you mean?

I mean that the father grows accustomed to descend to the level of his sons
and to fear them, and the son is on a level with his father, he having no
respect or reverence for either of his parents; and this is his freedom,
and the metic is equal with the citizen and the citizen with the metic, and
the stranger is quite as good as either.

Yes, he said, that is the way.

And these are not the only evils, I said--there are several lesser ones:
In such a state of society the master fears and flatters his scholars, and
the scholars despise their masters and tutors; young and old are all alike;
and the young man is on a level with the old, and is ready to compete with
him in word or deed; and old men condescend to the young and are full of
pleasantry and gaiety; they are loth to be thought morose and
authoritative, and therefore they adopt the manners of the young.

Quite true, he said.

The last extreme of popular liberty is when the slave bought with money,
whether male or female, is just as free as his or her purchaser; nor must I
forget to tell of the liberty and equality of the two sexes in relation to
each other.

Why not, as Aeschylus says, utter the word which rises to our lips?

That is what I am doing, I replied; and I must add that no one who does not
know would believe, how much greater is the liberty which the animals who
are under the dominion of man have in a democracy than in any other State:
for truly, the she-dogs, as the proverb says, are as good as their
she-mistresses, and the horses and asses have a way of marching along with
all the rights and dignities of freemen; and they will run at any body who
comes in their way if he does not leave the road clear for them: and all
things are just ready to burst with liberty.

When I take a country walk, he said, I often experience what you describe.
You and I have dreamed the same thing.

And above all, I said, and as the result of all, see how sensitive the
citizens become; they chafe impatiently at the least touch of authority,
and at length, as you know, they cease to care even for the laws, written
or unwritten; they will have no one over them.

Yes, he said, I know it too well.

Such, my friend, I said, is the fair and glorious beginning out of which
springs tyranny.

Glorious indeed, he said. But what is the next step?

The ruin of oligarchy is the ruin of democracy; the same disease magnified
and intensified by liberty overmasters democracy--the truth being that the
excessive increase of anything often causes a reaction in the opposite
direction; and this is the case not only in the seasons and in vegetable
and animal life, but above all in forms of government.

True.

The excess of liberty, whether in States or individuals, seems only to pass
into excess of slavery.

Yes, the natural order.

And so tyranny naturally arises out of democracy, and the most aggravated
form of tyranny and slavery out of the most extreme form of liberty?

As we might expect.

That, however, was not, as I believe, your question--you rather desired to
know what is that disorder which is generated alike in oligarchy and
democracy, and is the ruin of both?

Just so, he replied.

Well, I said, I meant to refer to the class of idle spendthrifts, of whom
the more courageous are the leaders and the more timid the followers, the
same whom we were comparing to drones, some stingless, and others having
stings.

A very just comparison.

These two classes are the plagues of every city in which they are
generated, being what phlegm and bile are to the body. And the good
physician and lawgiver of the State ought, like the wise bee-master, to
keep them at a distance and prevent, if possible, their ever coming in; and
if they have anyhow found a way in, then he should have them and their
cells cut out as speedily as possible.

Yes, by all means, he said.

Then, in order that we may see clearly what we are doing, let us imagine
democracy to be divided, as indeed it is, into three classes; for in the
first place freedom creates rather more drones in the democratic than there
were in the oligarchical State.

That is true.

And in the democracy they are certainly more intensified.

How so?

Because in the oligarchical State they are disqualified and driven from
office, and therefore they cannot train or gather strength; whereas in a
democracy they are almost the entire ruling power, and while the keener
sort speak and act, the rest keep buzzing about the bema and do not suffer
a word to be said on the other side; hence in democracies almost everything
is managed by the drones.

Very true, he said.

Then there is another class which is always being severed from the mass.

What is that?

They are the orderly class, which in a nation of traders is sure to be the
richest.

Naturally so.

They are the most squeezable persons and yield the largest amount of honey
to the drones.

Why, he said, there is little to be squeezed out of people who have little.

And this is called the wealthy class, and the drones feed upon them.

That is pretty much the case, he said.

The people are a third class, consisting of those who work with their own
hands; they are not politicians, and have not much to live upon. This,
when assembled, is the largest and most powerful class in a democracy.

True, he said; but then the multitude is seldom willing to congregate
unless they get a little honey.

And do they not share? I said. Do not their leaders deprive the rich of
their estates and distribute them among the people; at the same time taking
care to reserve the larger part for themselves?

Why, yes, he said, to that extent the people do share.

And the persons whose property is taken from them are compelled to defend
themselves before the people as they best can?

What else can they do?

And then, although they may have no desire of change, the others charge
them with plotting against the people and being friends of oligarchy?

True.

And the end is that when they see the people, not of their own accord, but
through ignorance, and because they are deceived by informers, seeking to
do them wrong, then at last they are forced to become oligarchs in reality;
they do not wish to be, but the sting of the drones torments them and
breeds revolution in them.

That is exactly the truth.

Then come impeachments and judgments and trials of one another.

True.

The people have always some champion whom they set over them and nurse into
greatness.

Yes, that is their way.

This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when he first
appears above ground he is a protector.

Yes, that is quite clear.

How then does a protector begin to change into a tyrant? Clearly when he
does what the man is said to do in the tale of the Arcadian temple of
Lycaean Zeus.

What tale?

The tale is that he who has tasted the entrails of a single human victim
minced up with the entrails of other victims is destined to become a wolf.
Did you never hear it?

Oh, yes.

And the protector of the people is like him; having a mob entirely at his
disposal, he is not restrained from shedding the blood of kinsmen; by the
favourite method of false accusation he brings them into court and murders
them, making the life of man to disappear, and with unholy tongue and lips
tasting the blood of his fellow citizens; some he kills and others he
banishes, at the same time hinting at the abolition of debts and partition
of lands: and after this, what will be his destiny? Must he not either
perish at the hands of his enemies, or from being a man become a wolf--that
is, a tyrant?

Inevitably.

This, I said, is he who begins to make a party against the rich?

The same.

After a while he is driven out, but comes back, in spite of his enemies, a
tyrant full grown.

That is clear.

And if they are unable to expel him, or to get him condemned to death by a
public accusation, they conspire to assassinate him.

Yes, he said, that is their usual way.

Then comes the famous request for a body-guard, which is the device of all
those who have got thus far in their tyrannical career--'Let not the
people's friend,' as they say, 'be lost to them.'

Exactly.

The people readily assent; all their fears are for him--they have none for
themselves.

Very true.

And when a man who is wealthy and is also accused of being an enemy of the
people sees this, then, my friend, as the oracle said to Croesus,

'By pebbly Hermus' shore he flees and rests not, and is not ashamed to be a
coward.'

And quite right too, said he, for if he were, he would never be ashamed
again.

But if he is caught he dies.

Of course.

And he, the protector of whom we spoke, is to be seen, not 'larding the
plain' with his bulk, but himself the overthrower of many, standing up in
the chariot of State with the reins in his hand, no longer protector, but
tyrant absolute.

No doubt, he said.

And now let us consider the happiness of the man, and also of the State in
which a creature like him is generated.

Yes, he said, let us consider that.

At first, in the early days of his power, he is full of smiles, and he
salutes every one whom he meets;--he to be called a tyrant, who is making
promises in public and also in private! liberating debtors, and
distributing land to the people and his followers, and wanting to be so
kind and good to every one!

Of course, he said.

But when he has disposed of foreign enemies by conquest or treaty, and
there is nothing to fear from them, then he is always stirring up some war
or other, in order that the people may require a leader.

To be sure.

Has he not also another object, which is that they may be impoverished by
payment of taxes, and thus compelled to devote themselves to their daily
wants and therefore less likely to conspire against him?

Clearly.

And if any of them are suspected by him of having notions of freedom, and
of resistance to his authority, he will have a good pretext for destroying
them by placing them at the mercy of the enemy; and for all these reasons
the tyrant must be always getting up a war.

He must.

Now he begins to grow unpopular.

A necessary result.

Then some of those who joined in setting him up, and who are in power,
speak their minds to him and to one another, and the more courageous of
them cast in his teeth what is being done.

Yes, that may be expected.

And the tyrant, if he means to rule, must get rid of them; he cannot stop
while he has a friend or an enemy who is good for anything.

He cannot.

And therefore he must look about him and see who is valiant, who is
high-minded, who is wise, who is wealthy; happy man, he is the enemy of
them all, and must seek occasion against them whether he will or no, until
he has made a purgation of the State.

Yes, he said, and a rare purgation.

Yes, I said, not the sort of purgation which the physicians make of the
body; for they take away the worse and leave the better part, but he does
the reverse.

If he is to rule, I suppose that he cannot help himself.

What a blessed alternative, I said:--to be compelled to dwell only with the
many bad, and to be by them hated, or not to live at all!

Yes, that is the alternative.

And the more detestable his actions are to the citizens the more satellites
and the greater devotion in them will he require?

Certainly.

And who are the devoted band, and where will he procure them?

They will flock to him, he said, of their own accord, if he pays them.

By the dog! I said, here are more drones, of every sort and from every
land.

Yes, he said, there are.

But will he not desire to get them on the spot?

How do you mean?

He will rob the citizens of their slaves; he will then set them free and
enrol them in his body-guard.

To be sure, he said; and he will be able to trust them best of all.

What a blessed creature, I said, must this tyrant be; he has put to death
the others and has these for his trusted friends.

Yes, he said; they are quite of his sort.

Yes, I said, and these are the new citizens whom he has called into
existence, who admire him and are his companions, while the good hate and
avoid him.

Of course.

Verily, then, tragedy is a wise thing and Euripides a great tragedian.

Why so?

Why, because he is the author of the pregnant saying,

'Tyrants are wise by living with the wise;'

and he clearly meant to say that they are the wise whom the tyrant makes
his companions.

Yes, he said, and he also praises tyranny as godlike; and many other things
of the same kind are said by him and by the other poets.

And therefore, I said, the tragic poets being wise men will forgive us and
any others who live after our manner if we do not receive them into our
State, because they are the eulogists of tyranny.

Yes, he said, those who have the wit will doubtless forgive us.

But they will continue to go to other cities and attract mobs, and hire
voices fair and loud and persuasive, and draw the cities over to tyrannies
and democracies.

Very true.

Moreover, they are paid for this and receive honour--the greatest honour,
as might be expected, from tyrants, and the next greatest from democracies;
but the higher they ascend our constitution hill, the more their reputation
fails, and seems unable from shortness of breath to proceed further.

True.

But we are wandering from the subject: Let us therefore return and enquire
how the tyrant will maintain that fair and numerous and various and
ever-changing army of his.

If, he said, there are sacred treasures in the city, he will confiscate and
spend them; and in so far as the fortunes of attainted persons may suffice,
he will be able to diminish the taxes which he would otherwise have to
impose upon the people.

And when these fail?

Why, clearly, he said, then he and his boon companions, whether male or
female, will be maintained out of his father's estate.

You mean to say that the people, from whom he has derived his being, will
maintain him and his companions?

Yes, he said; they cannot help themselves.

But what if the people fly into a passion, and aver that a grown-up son
ought not to be supported by his father, but that the father should be
supported by the son? The father did not bring him into being, or settle
him in life, in order that when his son became a man he should himself be
the servant of his own servants and should support him and his rabble of
slaves and companions; but that his son should protect him, and that by his
help he might be emancipated from the government of the rich and
aristocratic, as they are termed. And so he bids him and his companions
depart, just as any other father might drive out of the house a riotous son
and his undesirable associates.

By heaven, he said, then the parent will discover what a monster he has
been fostering in his bosom; and, when he wants to drive him out, he will
find that he is weak and his son strong.

Why, you do not mean to say that the tyrant will use violence? What! beat
his father if he opposes him?

Yes, he will, having first disarmed him.

Then he is a parricide, and a cruel guardian of an aged parent; and this is
real tyranny, about which there can be no longer a mistake: as the saying
is, the people who would escape the smoke which is the slavery of freemen,
has fallen into the fire which is the tyranny of slaves. Thus liberty,
getting out of all order and reason, passes into the harshest and bitterest
form of slavery.

True, he said.

Very well; and may we not rightly say that we have sufficiently discussed
the nature of tyranny, and the manner of the transition from democracy to
tyranny?